Chapter 24 Thirteen

Socrates' close connection with Euripides' tendencies did not escape the attention of his contemporaries; and the most eloquent indication of this gratifying sensibility is the popular Athenian legend that Socrates often assisted Euripides in composing poetry. .Whenever the demagogues of the day need to be enumerated, the adherents of the "Great Ages of Antiquity" single out these two names, and attribute the following to their influence: an increasingly dubious indoctrination which made physical and intellectual With constant degradation, marathon fitness, both physically and mentally, is sacrificed.Aristophanes' comedy often speaks of these two men in a tone half angry and half contemptuous, and modern people are horrified at this, and although they are willing to abandon Euripides, when Socrates is killed by Aristophanes. They are amazed when they appear as the most important and most prominent wise men, when they are presented as mirrors and miniatures of wise men's movements.There was but one consolation for them at this time, and that was the condemnation of Aristophanes himself as Alcibiades, the swindler of poetry.There is no need to defend Aristophanes' profound intuition to refute this attack. I continue to proceed from the feelings of the ancients to prove the close connection between Socrates and Euripides.In this respect, it should be recalled in particular that Socrates, being against the art of tragedy, forsook watching tragedy, and only when Euripides' new play was staged did he find himself in the audience.Most famously, however, the Delphic oracle combined the two names, calling Socrates the wisest of men, and arguing that the silver medal in the wits contest belonged to Euripides.

Sophocles was third, and he could be proud before Aeschylus that he did the right thing, and because he knew what was right.Apparently, this clarity of knowledge is why these three men were praised as the three "wise men" of the time. But on this new and unheard-of high appreciation of knowledge and insight, the most violent words came from Socrates, who found himself the only one who admitted that he knew nothing; In his wanderings, he visited the greatest statesmen, orators, poets, and artists, and met intellectual pretensions everywhere.He was dismayed to discover that all these celebrities had no real insight into what they were doing, but just instinct. "Only by instinct" - from this sentence, we have come into contact with the core and key of Socrates' tendency.Socraticism condemned the art and morality of the time in this way. He examined them critically and found that they lacked true knowledge and were full of illusions. The lack of true knowledge inferred that the time had reached the point of absurdity and corruption.Thus Socrates believed it was his duty to set life right: he was alone, alone, as the herald of a distinct culture, art, and morality, into a corner of which we awe-stricken would count for great fortune. gone to the world.

The great bewilderment we often feel in the face of Socrates constantly motivates us to understand the meaning and purpose of this most dubious phenomenon of antiquity.He who dares to stand alone and deny such geniuses as Homer, Pindar, Aeschylus, Phidias, Pericles, Pythia and Dionysus, is he not the deepest abyss and the highest peak, he must Can we stand in awe?What magic would dare to pour such a potion into the dust?What demigod, to whom the chorus of the noblest of men must cry: The strange phenomenon called "Socrates' patron saint" provides us with the key to understand the essence of Socrates.On special occasions when his great understanding hesitates, he hears a mysterious voice which gives him firm support.When this kind of voice comes, it is always discouraged.Intuitive wisdom arises in a totally perverted nature, everywhere only to prevent clear knowledge.In all creators, intuition is the force of creation and affirmation, while perception criticizes and dissuades; in Socrates, it is intuition that criticizes and perception that creates—what a naked (per defectum) Big strange thing!And we see here the monstrous defectus of every mystic quality, so that Socrates may be called a negative mystic, in whom the logical nature is overdeveloped by double pregnancy, just as in the mystics. It's the same as overdeveloped intuition wisdom.On the other hand, however, the logical impulse which appeared in Socrates was completely illogical to itself; We trembled in astonishment.Anyone who has only had a glimpse of the divine simplicity and self-confidence in Socrates' attitude towards life from Plato's writings can feel how the great cog wheel of logical Socraticism seems to be running behind Socrates, and this cog wheel How must be seen through Socrates as through a shadow.Socrates himself foresaw this relationship, manifested in the awe-inspiring and efficient execution of his divine mission everywhere, even in the presence of his judges.It is impossible to refute him in this, any more than to praise him in that he cancels the influence of intuition.Because of this unresolvable conflict, when he was brought before the court of the Greek city-state, there was only one way of sentence, that is, banishment.He was such a complete enigma, something inexplicable and inexplicable, that he had to be driven out of the country, and no posterity had a right to accuse the Athenians of a shameful deed.However, the result is that he is sentenced to death, not just exile, and Socrates is aboveboard, devoid of instinctive fear of death, acting as if he died voluntarily.He took it easy, with that serenity that Plato had described, the same serenity with which he, as the last of a group of feasters, was the first to leave the feast and begin the day in the light of dawn.Meanwhile, after he's gone, the drowsy drunks stay behind, lying on benches and floors, dreaming of Socrates, the true nymphomaniac.Socrates, dying, became a new ideal never seen before by the noble Greek youth. Plato, the typical Greek youth, first fell ecstatically before this image.